1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to articles which are coated, particularly to a coated article having an excellent hardness, and a method for coating the article.
2. Description of Related Art
Hard coatings are usually applied to tools (such as cutters or molds) to protect the tools and enhance their lifetime and quality. The hard coatings are intended to prevent the tool from wearing out prematurely and to provide chemical inertness to the surface of the tool. The most common hard coatings are based on transition metal nitrides (TiN or CrN), but there has been a vast increase in multi-component coatings (TiAlN), and in multilayer coatings (TiN/TiAlN) as well as in carbon-based coatings (DLC). However, such coatings as these may not achieve a worthwhile standard in reducing wear, and articles so coated may reveal unacceptably low levels of abrasion resistance and/or corrosion resistance.
Therefore, there is room for improvement within the art.